The Godless Hour
by Emerald-Latias
Summary: Nothing good ever happened at this time of night, Squall came to realize. Written for the Successor Challenge 2018.
1. i - heart

When the rays of light gently coaxed his eyelids open, the four words he'd said four nights ago was one of two things that kept Squall from instinctively reaching for the nearest heavy object to defend himself with at the sight in front of him.

The other was that he'd be hard-pressed to find anything in his now-too-immaculate hotel room that wasn't unwieldy furniture or bolted down entirely.

From his vantage point on the mattress, the only things she'd seemingly spared were his small black toiletries bag and key card packet on the countertop past the open bathroom door on the wall opposing both their queen-sized beds and parallel to the nightstand between them. A quick scour of the room after hopping off his mattress on the bed furthest away from the window confirmed his initial assessment; not even his boots or clothes were anywhere to be found. Even the messy heap of sheets she'd called a bed for the past few days was neatly-made.

 _What were the odds the key card isn't in the sleeve just to mess with me even more,_ he thought as he wandered towards the bathroom to the beat of the dull pounding in his head.

As he crossed the threshold where hardwood laminate met cold tile, Squall stopped dead in his tracks for the briefest of moments as his gaze zeroed on the glass brushing against the wall behind the bag instead of the key packet to the left of it. The paper coaster wasn't there – it was another orange keycard sleeve.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he walked over and lifted the cup. Thumbing the packet, he could feel the card slotted in there at the lightest pinch. Opening it up revealed it wasn't her key to the room but rather one to a different room based on the inner sleeve's scribble – even he had to concede that the worst penmanship known to man couldn't mangle a 404 out of a 356 and that this was really happening.

Selphie Tilmitt was conducting some kind of mandatory treasure hunt on his weekly day off and he had no one but himself to blame for it.

—

Even with the appropriate keycard in his pocket, Squall still opted to knock instead.

While he didn't cut as much of a threatening figure while sporting bed hair, bare feet, black pyjama pants and a white t-shirt, he could not make assumptions on the machinations of Selphie's mind. Not when there were far too many instances where she thought explosives were the answer.

Thankfully, explosives didn't answer the door as he was greeted by a familiar face a few seconds later.

"Dude, long time no see." Zell said as he ushered him in the room. Once the door was closed, he casually added, "Got any ideas why in the fresh hell Selphie brought us all here just to steal our stuff?"

Peering into the heart of the room, it seemed as though it had gotten the exact same treatment – no suitcases, no clothes, no phones and no money. Zell himself was wearing a black tank top and blue pyjama bottoms.

Venturing forward, he saw nothing but the standard trappings of a hotel room. " _'All'_ as in…?"

The layout was the complete opposite of his; the bathroom was on the immediate left of the entrance door and the closet was on the right and not the furthest left hand corner for both. The small passage opened up to a wide rectangular room with the beds on the left and the tv and desk combo on the right. That configuration was flipped in his room.

"Quistis and Rinoa." Zell answered. "There was an extra key card with a slip of paper sticking out that said, _'the key to the case'_ so they went to investigate together while I stayed behind in case someone came by. Your room doesn't happen to be 716, is it?"

Squall sat himself at the foot of the nearest bed, unsure of what else to do.

"No. It's 356." he answered. "I don't have an answer for the motive. She's been in Trabia on a mission to gather various supplies for the majority of the time I've been here. Haven't done anything to upset her or provoke retaliation that I'm aware of."

The blond waved him off before taking up the nearby desk chair. "Meh, knowing her it has nothing to do with you. Probably wanted to flex some planning skills with a twisted game since Xu turned the Festival Committee budget into a joke." he theorized. "I figured something was up when she got all cagey when I asked why there were so many A-Rank SeeDs on board when there was no way in hell Garden would authorize that. Here I was wishfully thinking our dear headmaster loosened her Iron Giant-like grip on the Gil. Guess not."

Squall shrugged lackadaisically and scanned the room a little more, not interested in that particular conversation.

The slight squeak of the wheels scraping against the laminate flooring ended that charade a little quicker than he would have liked as Zell wheeled himself sideways to fully occupy his field of vision.

"—Your room get the same klepto treatment?"

"Yeah."

He got up off the bed and walked past Zell to head back towards the room's entrance before making a sharp right to the bathroom to inspect the countertop for further clues with not much else to pass the time. Three bags were on the countertop – two were standard issue black SeeD zippered bags like his own and the other was unmistakably Rinoa's even though he'd never seen it before, process of elimination notwithstanding. As much as she claimed a love of everything light blue, her unspoken predilection for pink often cropped up more than she'd ever care to admit. Her protests on the matter never failed to amuse and bemuse him.

"The girls already combed the countertop super thoroughly, just so you know."

 _It was unsettling how quietly Zell could approach people when he wanted to,_ Squall thought with a slight jolt.

In spite of himself, dropped the pretense by acknowledging his presence with a glance his way.

"…Was the key card they found for room 716 under the glass cup?"

Zell shook his head. "No, it was tied to a helium 'Happy Birthday' balloon in the middle of the room that we popped. It took us way longer than it should have to realize it was a clue."

"Maybe she enacted this as revenge on us all because we didn't throw her an elaborate birthday party." Squall dryly added.

"Could be, who knows." the blond shrugged, the sarcasm sailing over his head. "Whatever the reason, she's definitely has something elaborate set up. Irvine was on the Ragnarok too and he's been MIA since we parted ways last night. I'd bet Gil to Gysahl Greens he's her little assistant."

"…Should I ask how she convinced you all to come to Esthar?"

"Oh that. It wasn't anything ridiculous for the most part. Rinoa was totally down to hitch a ride, Quistis was gonna to assist Selphie with her thing, I was going to relieve you because you had some kind of higher priority thing back at Garden. Selphie didn't give me too many specifics, just that it was an easy-peasy security job and you'd brief me on the rest when we touched down. And Irvine well…he's the one I couldn't figure out since neither job sounded like it needed a marksman and I'm not sure he's capable of flying the Ragnarok solo for this kind of long-distance trip." he explained. "You…didn't actually have a higher priority thing, did you?"

Squall shook his head. "No one could have filled in for me here even if I had one. The stipulation of this contract was that I had to be the one present."

Zell's face scrunched up a bit as he kept his lips pursed, frozen in this expression for a good ten seconds; Squall was unsurprised at this, keenly aware of how absurd his last statement was.

"…The client must be paying a buttload of Gil if Xu agreed to that." Zell finally commented.

Squall was thankful for the mechanic droning noise of the room's card key reader coming to life and grabbing their collective attention.

Anticipating the door's arc, Zell stepped aside into the bathroom proper. They both soon realized it was for naught as it only opened up a smidge, just enough for Quistis's head to pop out from behind it.

"Everything cool?" Zell pre-emptively asked.

"Not sure yet." While the words weren't minced, there was some reassurance in the absence of Quistis's too-calm tone that she often used while breaking terrible news during missions which often inspired the opposite effect. "Could you help carry some suitcases inside while Rinoa holds the door open?"

As if on cue, the door moved a little wider as the sorceress poked her head into view with a sheepish grin. "Our arms are noodles so _aaaaaany_ help would be great."

When her eyes eventually locked with his, Squall keenly felt a psychic punch to the stomach as he nodded like an idiot with nothing between the ears.

While the old adage that absence made the heart grow fonder was definitely rang true these past few weeks, having Selphie's antics put them in the same place with a time crunch preventing them to spare a few seconds for themselves made it grow fondest.

Forced to accept this was his current reality, he wasted no time and walked towards the door, Zell following suit. As they approached, Quistis ducked out to the hallway and Rinoa took up her position before ultimately turning around to slowly press her back into the door to make it swing into the room as far as it would go. When he looped around her to walk out past the room's threshold, she gave him a near-imperceptible smile which he returned in kind, mercifully fleeting enough for no one else to pick up on.

It was another small mercy that she had the foresight to wear a pair of red plaid short-shorts and a fitted black and white tank for sleepwear instead of something pilfered from his dressers or else he would have never heard the end of it.

One step into the hallway had pushed out all thoughts of self-consciousness however, when four near-identical sparkling cherry-red cases in front of him demanded most of his, and presumably everyone's, attention. While each were of uniform height and width, coming up to the tops of Quistis's knees and about three-quarters as wide, what set them apart were the different lock colours and unique black decals — red lock with a square, white lock with a number four, green lock with a cloud-shrub and black lock with a clover. While today had been surreal enough already, now it veered straight into game show territory.

Without a word, Squall grabbed the nearest two cases and Zell took the other two a moment later without much resistance from Quistis. While he couldn't speak for Zell's cases, Squall remarked that there was no large disparity in weight with his. And while not dense as lead, he could understand why Rinoa and Quistis had tired out their arms – the small, inflexible handle combined with the width forcing his arms far enough from his core made for a less-than-ideal hold. It especially didn't help matters when it was too wide to carry without gripping the handle and the edges too sharp to get away with that even if it would have been.

Nevertheless it was less than five steps before he had to sideways step into the room, Rinoa stole another look as he passed the threshold once more, and a little more than five before he dumped the cases on the nearby bed and claimed the office chair Zell was on earlier. Just as he registered the click of the door closing, Zell had done the same with his lot and sat himself on the desk surface and Rinoa had unceremoniously plunked herself on the other bed that was not infested with cases.

Quistis slowly walked into view, stopping smack dab in between both beds, right hand plunged into her lavender pj pants' right pocket for a moment before extracting four sets of keys and what looked like a miniature USB stick. From what he could see, each key had a small circular tag in varying colours; it didn't take a genius to figure out the colours probably corresponded to the suitcase locks.

After opening the cap of the stick and pointing it at the nearby turned off television, Zell and Rinoa nearly jumped ten feet when Selphie's ear-to-ear grin greeted them on the screen.

" _Heeeey! Bet you're all wondering why you're all here and I'm on this screen like this? Well, I can't answer the first question but the second one is totally thanks to Esthar's next gen toys. Neat, huh?"_

There was a lull of absolute silence for a good five seconds before on-screen Selphie's pause for dramatic effect ended.

" _Ok, ok, you probably don't care but I bet you really care about your stuff so let's cut to the chase, ok? If you didn't pick up the four cases and keys, pause this video and go back to my birthday room and get that a-s-a-p before hitting play again."_

On-screen Selphie started to raise her hands with open palms with stiff, jarring movements before freezing up completely for another five second silent lull before snapping back into action with the grace of a news anchor on a two second delay who missed the cue.

" _-Got your cases and keys now? Booyaka! Now the fun begins."_ she announced, pumping her fist in the air. " _Each of the keys corresponds to a case with the same colour lock for the Square, Luck, Seasons and Four cases. Thanks to my nifty Estharian gizmos, I'll know who picked what so make that choice super carefully because you can't take it back after. I hiiiighly recommend taking turns opening cases where no one else is in view of the side that opens so it doesn't register more than one face. Otherwise, I'll get to go full Hyne-mode on you all and everyone'll absolutely regret that with a capital R. Anyway, that's it for now. Be sure to open up all your cases for more of Tilmitt's Tidbits!_ "

Quistis lowered her hand and took a step back so she was no longer in the center of the makeshift circle they'd made, opting to sit squarely in the middle of the inner edge of Rinoa's bed. When Squall turned his chair to face the both of them, Zell hopped off the desk and sat himself on the foot of that bed as Rinoa scooted closer to the edge to claim the inner corner. A third lull failed to materialize as Quistis let out a long sigh.

"Since it seems as though we don't have a choice or the time, let's not waste our breath asking questions we won't get the answers to." she lamented, as she held out her hands with the keys on full display. "I'd wager that what she called the cases by are a clue for their contents. Does anyone have a preference for the case they want?"

"I don't really, but I think a game of luck should determine who gets the Luck case." Rinoa piped up. The suggestion was promptly met with the black-tag key gingerly dropped into her lap.

"It seems like luck happens to be on your side today." Quistis deadpanned before craning her neck a tad to lock eyes with the still-keyless. "Any preference?"

"Not really." Squall absentmindedly said with a shrug, turning his head towards Zell. "You?"

"Yeah… haven't decided yet. Still thinkin' 'bout that." Zell truthfully answered, rubbing his non-existent beard with his thumb and forefinger in deep contemplation. "Not sure if the Seasons case will have more winter stuff because it's Selphie and Trabia or if the green is a clue for summer. Square seems like it'd be something neutral-ish but then there's square dancing and I don't want to have to wear a…wait a minute, what makes you think the name is a clue for what it'll have?"

"Just a hunch since everything else has been a clue-based treasure hunt so far and there would be no reason to drop the names if there wasn't." Quistis elaborated. "Not to mention this is Selphie of all people, so there is definitely a theme to each case. The Garden Festival Committee lives and dies by themes."

"Yeah, you have a point there." the blond conceded before going back to stroking his jawline. "In that case, I think you should have Four and Squall should have Square."

"Because…?"

Squall couldn't help but be amused at Quistis and Rinoa saying the word in unison for wildly-different reasons, judging by the former's casual tone and the notes of irritation found it the latter's. Zell's grin suggested that he too was amused at his newfound collective audience.

" _Becaaaause_ Quistis is a four-eyes and square has the first four letters of Squall's name."

"…Kind of surprised you didn't think Seasons for me if you were going for the obvious." Squall deadpanned.

"Honestly, didn't know your name was seasons-related. I thought it just meant when babies wail." Zell said in an earnest tone that suggested he wasn't cracking jokes at his expense. Not that it particularly mattered when Rinoa and Quistis shot knowing looks at each other. "Either way, your folks must have been weird."

Taking a page from Quistis's book, Squall chose to drop this conversation and grabbed the cases one by one to distribute them, giving Quistis Four, Rinoa Luck and making the unilateral decision to claim Seasons instead of Square for himself. Zell's mouth opened slightly when he looked down at his case's decal, but reluctantly pursed his lips once Quistis gave the corresponding keys to those who didn't have them yet.

"Does one person in the bathroom, one on the floor between the window and this bed, one on the floor space down here and the last person facing the door sound ok?" Rinoa suggested, "I know it sounds silly but I _really_ don't want to risk Hyne-mode Selphie."

"No, I agree." Quistis said with a nod. "We'll open them all at the same time and reconvene. I'll take the floor space by the window."

With her case and key in hand, she quickly rounded the foot of the bed and sat down, now largely out of view other than the very top of her head. Shortly after, Rinoa headed towards the bathroom and Squall sat himself by the door, leaving Zell in the center of the room in between the beds. The light rustling of keys permeated the relative silence, followed by the clicking of tumblers and unlocked case buckles.

Squall had only opened up his case a crack before a voice in the distance stopped him in his tracks.

" _...What in the actual fuck, Selphie."_

That had been Quistis.

This did not bode well.


	2. ii - spade

After her outburst, the entirety of the room was overcome with the kind of stillness and hyper-awareness commonly found in high tension scenarios like bomb diffusions, target extractions and instances where someone accidentally called a teacher mom.

Though he still had his own case to open, Squall waited for a second to see if anyone else's reactions followed suit as he slowly lifted the lid without looking to ensure Rinoa wouldn't walk past him before the detection mechanism fired and accidentally instigated Hyne-mode.

One uneventful moment passed…then another…and another…

Was this an all-clear or were they all simply silent in assessing the damage they'd have to deal with later?

Squall lifted the lid backwards enough to rest it against the closed hallway door. Overthinking about this wasn't going to achieve anything. The soft beep that emanated from the case registered as an after-thought as perused the immediate items he could see.

He slowly exhaled after rummaging through the surface-level of the case; Zell's theorizing from earlier was on the right track. He could live with this.

Digging further down, Squall looked for any USB-like objects similar to what Quistis had in hand. Carefully taking out each item one by one, he quickly realized there were absolutely no electronics in his case. Part of him was not surprised however, his case was nature-based after all. Figuring it wasn't the brightest idea to leave everything strewn about, he went to work on stuffing back the items.

And by the time the suitcases' buckles were closed again, the bathroom door swung wide open. Squall looked in her direction and was shortly rewarded with a thumbs up. The internal screaming in his head dulled a little more.

"…All good?" she asked in a stage whisper.

"Jury's out for the other side of the room." he quietly answered as he got up and picked up his case.

Rinoa raised her own case, decal-side facing him. "Turns out luck really was on my side."

"Good."

They walked towards the beds and waited at the foot of the first one until Zell craned his head up.

"It's safe to come by – my case beeped." he told them as he clicked the case closed and lobbed it on the bed closest to them. The blond got up shortly after and dusted off some invisible dirt off his pants. "Did you guys get any gizmos like the one Q had earlier?"

"I didn't. My case was full of seasonal clothes and one non-Triple Triad playing card." Squall answered. "The three of spades."

Both Zell and Rinoa looked at him.

"Weird, I got one too." the blond piped in. "Mine was the two of diamonds. Did you have one Rin?"

"I don't know but I did have a playing card box I didn't open. It had some weight to it so I wouldn't be surprised if I had both of those things. Let me check."

Rinoa set down her case to open it. After a little bit of digging, she pulled out the box in question. Opening up the lid, she plucked out all of its contents – an ace of clubs playing card, an electronic gizmo, a folded piece of paper and a single die — and placed them on the bed sheets aside from the paper, which she held onto. She started picking at the small smiley face sticker that held the paper's fold in place.

Once it was torn off, she opened it up and started to silently read. By the time her eyes left the page, Quistis finally emerged from the strip of floor on the far side of the window-side bed.

"…I have the four of hearts if it matters any." she chimed in, the card between her fingers. "Can you pass me the gadget?"

Zell quickly grabbed the stick and gingerly gave it to her. She raised her hand and pointed it at the television. Squall was genuinely surprised when Selphie's grin had a chance to materialize on-screen once more; Quistis's open contempt for whatever she found in her case was written all over her face and the expression looked awfully-similar to how it did right before she'd unleash a Laser Eye attack.

" _Helloooo! If you're seeing this this means you've all opened up your cases and found your cards. Now the fun part begins."_ she said, rubbing her hands together. " _To get your stuff back, each of you need to be at different checkpoints today with at least the minimum amount of marked items on you and any hotel key cards you have – you can't bring anything else that wasn't in your case. Except for your underpants, you can have those too. But only if you want to, I won't judge. Annnnyway, the minimum number of marked items you need to wear equals your card's number and the mark to look for is its suit. Since I wanted to keep the cases pretty even weight-wise, some have more items than what you need to bring. Unmarked items in your case are clues to where to find out where your checkpoint is. Except for the two pairs of flip flops. That's just for walking. Don't worry though, all the check points are nearby, located in places where you don't need ID, Gil or fancy footwear."_

"Gee thanks, Selph. Appreciate the thought." Zell sarcastically grumbled under his breath. This made Rinoa snicker a bit. On-screen Selphie clapped and the timing made it seem like she was passively-aggressively trying to ignore Zell's words.

" _Annnnnd since I know I can't please everyone, I'm giving you guys the opportunity to have a one-time chance to swap."_ she elaborated. _"In the playing card box one of you has, there's a slip of paper with four tasks that correspond to a case each. Once two tasks have been completed, the people with those cases will have to show up at their checkpoint with a marked item from each other's cases – so be sure to think it through because it's a mandatory swap at that point. This option will be available until 1pm or when the requirements are met, whichever happens sooner."_

"Guess this explains what I was reading earlier." Rinoa interjected, smoothing the paper a little more flat.

" _And before I go, there's one last thing. Starting at 1 pm, the checkpoints rotate every two hours. So even if you clear a checkpoint early, it'll still be another two hours before the next one. Pro-tip – use all the extra time to plan ahead! Peace out, dudes!"_

When the projection cut out, Quistis unceremoniously tossed the gizmo onto the bed beside her.

"I only have four marked items in my case." she said in the familiar too-cool tone. "…One of them looks like a bendable replica of a decomposing Malboro tentacle. The rest of the marked items aren't any better."

"What the H-E-double hockey sticks Selphie! That is seriously messed up." Rinoa exclaimed.

"You can say hell you know, Rin." Zell suggested. "Or even fuck. I think this definitely warrants a fuck. —Wait, that came out wrong - _ugh, nevermind._ This is still so messed up I can't even process it. Between that and my case, I don't even know where the hell she even got the ideas from in the first place."

"…Does it even matter that we don't know where the fuck she got the ideas from in the first place?" Squall pointed out.

"Yeah, it probably doesn't. It's Selphie we're talking about here. Anything is possible." Zell shrugged. "Anyway, my case has a morph suit with tiny peach, pink and beige squares, a ridiculously-huge cactuar cube pillow and a necklace with square jewels. The cactuar pillow is the only thing without a diamond marking somewhere."

"My case has a bunch of magician's clothes." Rinoa chimed in. "A top hat, cape, three piece suit, a small backpack that looks like a white Carbuncle. Everything except for the backpack has a club on it. When I opened that up, it had the flip flops, the playing card box and a brochure for a two hour magic show. The show starts at 1pm in the entertainment complex that connects to this hotel and there's another one at 9 pm."

As Rinoa expanded upon the contents of her case, Squall watched as Quistis's ears gradually reddened by the second.

"My marked items are a Moogle winter hat with ear flaps, swimming shorts and a light blue pool inner-tube." he matter-of-factly filled them in. "The unmarked item is a purple scarf with flowers. I've eaten at a sit-down restaurant with Selphie in the same complex that uses a similar motif for their signage so I think that's my checkpoint."

"That's not bad. Not bad at all." Rinoa commented before she glanced at Quistis for a moment before looking at him dead in the eyes with a familiar mischievous grin that sent a chill down his spine. "What colour trunks?"

 _Shit._

She noticed the omission.

"… _Pink._ "

"Like…light pink? Cool pink? Dusty pink? Medium pink? Peony pink? Carnation pink? Bubblegum pink? Cerise? Dark pink? Magenta? Fuchsia?"

"…I didn't understand ninety percent of what you just said. I'm not as big a fan of pink as you are, Rinoa."

Her grin instantly disappeared. "Don't even go there Squall."

"I'm not." Squall lied through his teeth. He'd regret this later but it was worth it. "I don't know the name but it's a bright pink and probably the worst colour Selphie could have possibly found on the planet."

Without much fanfare, he opened up his case on the bed and fished out the offending garment. He didn't even have them outside the case before Rinoa reached in and grabbed them for herself, holding them high with her hands on either side of the waistband.

"… _Neon pink._ " she murmured in an incredulous tone before lowering her arms and absentmindedly handing him the shorts. "…I think I just broke my brain trying to imagine you wearing these boyshorts."

"…Not going to lie, that makes me feel a little better." Quistis added from across the room, a little calmer than before.

Zell turned around and the three of them had all eyes on her as she walked back to the windowsill and crouched down. A moment had passed when she re-emerged with a tangle of fabric and netting in her one hand with the tentacle-like thing in the other, a pair of red heart-shaped glasses on her head. She dropped the tentacle on the mattress and all of their eyes were drawn downward. It was as disgusting as she'd described earlier – the garbage-green tentacle had flecks of moldy yellow and brown splotches. Shallow cavities that looked they were beginning to rot in places and off-white pustules of hardened and flaky ooze caked all over the place. At close range, it smelled like gym socks dowsed in too much of the kind of body spray marketed towards pre-teens who didn't shower and wanted the lazy way out.

Squall had so many questions at the level of dedication it took for Selphie to create something frightenly-photorealistic just outside close range on such short notice.

"The rest of the horrors include a fishnet top with pastel pink heart pasties-"

She threw it on top of the tentacle.

"-These parachute pants that have white and black sequins and a light pink velour side cape with a white heart on it."

The pants landed on the fishnet and tentacle with a light rustling noise and whump.

"-And these heart-shaped glasses that are sort of cute." she said, tapping the top of the glasses with her index before crouching back down to pick something else out of her case. "My unmarked item is this piece of blue stationery that says, _'Hearts. Nips detailer. A place. Stage.'_ "

"…That note makes it seem like we should be hitting up a gentlemen's club but Selphie said we don't need ID." Zell said, scratching his head. "I guess we have time to think about it if Rinoa's checkpoint is first and the order is probably following our card numbers. What time is it anyway?"

"If this nightstand clock is accurate, 8:19 am." Quistis answered. "I think we should take advantage of the free hotel breakfast buffet while it's still being offered to clear our heads a little before we decide who should have an item swapped. Sound ok?"

"Yeah, definitely. I'm starved." Zell concurred. "Plus we could take up some extras for later since we have no money."

"I'm going to throw this out here," Rinoa interjected, looking at Zell and Quistis, "Correct me if I'm wrong but, Selphie was the one who checked us in, right?"

Both nodded.

"We _could_ call for room service if it's her card on file."

"Normally I wouldn't entertain that kind of idea," Quistis admitted, "…but I'm willing to make an exception for today. I don't want to be particularly sober if I have to wear a tentacle."


	3. iii - diamond

As she peeled her eyes away from the room service menu brochure, Squall could see Rinoa's nose wrinkle ever so subtly. He was sitting on the center inner edge of the mattress as she sat on his left, an arm's reach from the nightstand in between the beds. The blondes assumed mirror-image positions on the other bed with Quistis closer to the nightstand.

"…I'm sorry Quistis, looks like wine is off the menu." she apologized. "Says here that they need to see ID when they deliver to the rooms. And even if Selphie hadn't stolen them, the legal drinking age is only 19 for residents of Esthar. The drinking age for non-residents is 22 for some reason."

She let out a long sigh. "It's alright, I'm not terribly surprised by that. Esthar may have eased up on their collective xenophobia a little bit but culture isn't always as quick to change. At least Selphie didn't say all four of us had to be present at a checkpoint. I could hide out here until it's my turn."

"That's true." Rinoa said with a nod. "So long as we're mindful of the time with whatever clocks are nearby, we can switch in and out. I could even escort you guys to make it seem like you're a part of a magical act even-"

She paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up brighter than a Holy spell.

"…Come to think of it, she just said you had to be at the checkpoint with only your stuff. She didn't say we couldn't like, hide it until we got there. So if we do a buddy system, a person who doesn't have a checkpoint to pass by could put everything in a bag, find a bathroom and change. Then that reduces the amount of time you're in those ridiculous get ups."

"Selphie would have already factored that in when she picked her checkpoint locations to make that strategy ineffective." he pointed out. "The attached complex has three levels on a property that spans a city block. Any of the public bathrooms are built away from any meeting spaces and attractions to avoid congestion. You're still crossing one end of a floor to another at minimum. If my case is any indication, she likely picked public places where our case contents would stand out the most."

Rinoa blinked.

"…Remind me never to get on Selphie's bad side. Not like any of know what we did to her to earn her wrath this time, but still…" She left the sentence hanging as she peered down at the menu once more. "At least we can exact a tiny fraction of revenge because these prices are ridiculous. Not gonna lie though, though part of me is legitimately curious about crunchy Deling toast."

"I know I told you I wanted the meat eater's plate but could you see if they can add a side order of that for me too?" Zell asked, "I was curious about that too."

"There is only the option to do full orders. Do you think you can eat all of that?"

"Psh. Rin, what kind of question is that? Of course I can pack it away. And even if I couldn't, it doesn't matter if it goes to waste - we're not paying for any of this, remember?"

"You know what…you're absolutely right. Money is no object. Remind me to order us some lobsters encrusted with caviar and diamonds at lunch." Rinoa joked. "A whole pot of coffee good for everyone? Or should we splurge and order two? It doesn't say how big the pots are."

"One should be fine-"

"-I want orange juice, actually."

"Ok. I'll just add a glass for you and I'll just do the one pot. Quistis, you wanted the spinach omelette?"

"Yes."

Rinoa took a piece of hotel stationery and started writing down all their orders. She paused for a moment to look up at him.

"Alright. Squall?"

"I'll have the same as Quistis."

"Ok." Rinoa jot down an 'x 2' beside the spinach omelette before spending the next minute placing the order on the phone. Once she set down the receiver she announced, "It'll be about a half hour so did you guys want to go over my slip of paper?"

"Might as well." Quistis said, prompting Rinoa to slink back on the bed and crawl around him to access her open case.

Once she re-sat herself with the paper in hand, she started reading it.

" _Clover - get lucky. Roll the die, and see what you get. Fours only, please."_ She paused for a moment to tuck some errant hairs behind her ear. _"Spade - pick flowers. A girl can't make a fancy crown without some flora. Real flowers only, please."_

He wasn't likely to ditch the pink shorts, Squall mentally remarked. Esthar prided itself on boasting a practically hypo-allergenic environment for the vast majority of public spaces.

" _Diamond – find ice. I need a drink, stat. Cool it down, please."_ she read before adding, "I'm pretty sure we're the ones who need the drink, but ok."

When a peal of giggles escaped Rinoa's mouth in lieu of more reciting, Squall wanted to pre-emptively groan. He couldn't read the piece of paper from his vantage point without risking a crick in his neck. As she gave him a brief sympathetic look after the laughter subsided, she didn't need to say anything else to know Selphie was out to screw with him in particular with the last requirement.

"I'm sorry but I need to do a dramatic reading of this one because it's so ridiculous I can't not. _"_ she sorta-apologized before jumping into theatrics, complete with flailing hand gestures for good measure. _"Heart! Kiss cam! Make your own pecks tape! Don't have a camera?! Selphie Tilmitt can loan you one for the low, low, price of a minute of footage! Tongue, please."_

Squall immediately rescinded any mental note he previously had about signing their breakfast bill to his room.

"…Is it too late to add a pitcher of ice cubes to our order?"

"That hot and bothered by that last one, eh Squall?" Zell ribbed.

"Not a fan of gross invasions of privacy, so no." he retorted. "I said that because it's literally the only avenue we have to find ice since none of us are junctioned. They don't have ice machines here."

Zell's grin flattened. "…Seriously?!"

"Seriously."

"Rinoa, can you do the thing?"

Rinoa let out a snicker. "Sure Zell. I can do the thing and get us some ice."

The sorceress made a point to comically drag out the act of reaching out to grab the phone and dialing the single digit needed to reach the room service department, much to his chagrin and Squall's delight. Once the ice was successfully appended to their already-bloated order, she got back to the task at hand.

"Jokes aside Squall, as much as I don't like encouraging Selphie's voyeuristic tendencies, I think we're gonna need to take one for the team for Quistis's sake. Unless you want to go for broke and troll our dear friend by kissing Zell. I won't take offense if that's what your heart tells you to do."

Squall tossed her an incredulous look as Zell's eyes bugged out of his skull.

"The voyeuristic tendencies are bad enough, I'm not about to feed her already over-active imagination." he curtly responded before shifting his gaze towards Quistis. "Before we have to deal with melting ice, we should narrow down trade options between Rinoa or Zell's cases. I doubt we could find real flowers easily to consider anything from mine."

"That's a fair point." Quistis agreed. "I was thinking of trading necklace for the tentacle."

"Q, I respect you as a person and a friend but I respectfully have to tell you hell no." he said. "It's bad enough when my morph suit looks like a censored naked body like what happens whenever your characters shower in that family simulator computer game I can't remember the name of. I don't need to look like walking nightmare fuel."

"I think that's moot point when no one can see your face."

"I think it's not moot point when Selphie can take a pic for blackmail to lord over my head forever." Zell countered. "I think you'll have to trade with Rinoa. The only options that won't leave one of us pantsless is either trading the glasses for the necklace or the morph suit for your pants. And I'm guessing those items are the least of your worries."

"You wouldn't be wrong." she conceded before turning towards Rinoa. "Could you part with your cape if I gave you my heart glasses?"

"I can definitely do that."

"Perfect." she said, now looking visibly relieved. "Does your note say where to meet her?"

"It does. We have to go to the lobby lounge, wherever that is. I'm guessing she picked there because it's probably closed for business until later." the sorceress theorized before tilting her head to the right. "We should probably go there now since we don't need to wait up for the ice."

"Might as well." Squall shrugged before twisting backwards to fish through his case to find the larger set of flip flops.

He nearly did a double take when he pulled out both pairs at the same time and noticed they were both pure white instead of some godawful neon colour. Rinoa followed suit by walking back to her own case and plucking out a pair of her flip flops before stuffing the die into her right pocket. Instead of retaking her place, she promptly waved her flip flops in front of his head as he was slipping his own on.

"If you need a little more kitsch to go with the rest of your case, you can trade me these sparkly red flip flops."

"I'll pass, thanks." he politely brushed off as he stood up. "You have a key card?"

"Sure do." she confirmed as she dropped her sandals to put them on.

After he had visual confirmation of this when she fished the card out of her left pocket, he started walking towards the door. To his surprise, she didn't linger for a moment like she usually did to say goodbyes on both their behalf, opting to briskly zip by him to be the one opening the door. Squall supposed he was overthinking this – it was a given that they were coming back because of the situation. There really wasn't much need to make the usual production of things.

Nevertheless, he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was off when she took the lead once they were out of the room, especially considering that she admitted she didn't know where the bar was a moment ago.

Then once they were a good length of the hallway from the room, she stopped walking and pivoted on the spot to face him.

"-I'm sorry that the Zell joke was super-awkward. I was trying to make a joke back at Zell for the earlier thing and I regretted it from the moment it left my mouth."

"It's fine. Just know that you'll have to live with the fact you made Zell hot and bothered at the thought of him kissing me in front of Selphie."

"Thanks, Squall. Now I'll have to live with the fact you actually made that joke and it's now seared into my brain, regardless if that was accurate or not." she dryly replied.

"You're welcome."

"Ugh, you're such a jerk. But I deserved it this time and _only_ this time." she said before changing gears altogether. "Anyway, I've been thinking it over and I do have a plan for the kiss cam part when we cross that bridge. It'll make Selphie deeply dissatisfied. You'll have to follow my lead without any prep to make it look convincing though."

"That's fine."

"Perfect." There was a slight pause before she reached for his left hand, which he gently accepted. "…In case we don't get any more alone time later, it's really nice to see you again…even under these super-zany circumstances. It's felt like…forever since we've been in the same place."

Her cheeks went rosy as she spoke that last sentence and he was compelled to deepen the blush as he stole a small kiss on her lips.

"…It really has."

—

The mood in the lobby lounge was a stark contrast to their stolen moments along the way to their arrival here.

Once he and Rinoa had made it all the way to the ground floor and made a beeline past the front desk to the right and around the corner where the lounge was in this semi-secluded alcove. The room was blindingly illuminated by the floor to wall windows letting in the beams of light. Squall was not hungover by any stretch of the imagination, having not consumed so much as a drop of alcohol in quite some time for obvious reasons, but he sure as hell felt every bit of the headache. The sunlight even felt loud somehow and he couldn't wrap his brain around that as he and Rinoa traversed the cold, pearlescent white tile of the empty space between the rows of circular brush metallic high top tables sans chairs.

The bar's wares were displayed behind ultra-polished glass display cases with a gradient of frosted decal lines on the bottom half of them, located behind the black bar counter on the right. On the window-side there was a razor-thin white counter running all along the wall, dotted with full-back, translucent barstools in front of them.

On the far wall were three half-circle, charcoal grey booths nestled in there on a small, raised platform separating them from the rest of the bar area. And in the center booth at its apex was Selphie Tilmitt with her camcorder on one side, a near-full glass of some kind of blue drink on the other and a patchy flower crown on her head. No sooner than they'd locked eyes than she started to drum her fingers rhythmically against the table with a gleeful smile.

"Sooo, you're taking me up on my offer, huh?" she remarked, "Most awesome! Which cases are you going for?"

"Selphie, we came to reason with you." Rinoa said as she approached the booth. "Why are you doing this? What did we ever do to you? Friends don't make friends wear smelly tentacles - even replica ones that aren't the real deal."

The drumming stopped as she reached for her cup and took a small sip of her blue drink.

"It's nothing personal. You'll understand when it's over." she diplomatically answered in a very formal tone, eyes trained on the both of them as she wiped her mouth and swirled her glass a little. It was a nearly-soundless motion with the lack of ice in the cup, but the effect was still there – it was plan to see that this was mob princess Selphie they were dealing with. "Now, which cases are you going for? Or did you guys just come down here just to beg for mercy?"

Rinoa shot him a perplexed look before answering the question.

"Heart and clover." she answered in a similar business-like tone, pulling the die out of her pocket. She took two steps forward and rolled it on the table without hesitation. A six.

"Oh, guess you'll have to find another case since that's not a four." the brunette declared, pushing back the die away from her.

The sorceress took it in hand but did not pocket it; instead she re-rolled.

"Your info card didn't say it was a one-time roll." she countered. "I can re-roll as many times as I want until I get a four. And would you look at that? Second time's…not the charm?"

"-Stop. Just stop. I'll give you that one." Selphie conceded. "Shoulda made that job description airtight. Fortunately for me, the heart case's description is vacuum-sealed. Since I don't see anything in your hands or weird bulges in either of your pockets, is it safe to assume you need this video camera to burn some film for one hot minute?"

When she picked it up and clicked a large button, a dull drone, light blink and chime indicated it came to life. Rinoa gave her a curt nod. She took two steps backwards to be at his side once more.

"You stole everyone's phones so yes, yes we do." she confirmed. "Just say when."

Selphie raised the camera so she could look through a view finder and hit a different button, eliciting a different-sounding beep. Out of the corner of his eye, he waited for a signal from Rinoa to do something, anything, but she was just staring at Selphie…and staring…and…

"Blepping doesn't count as tongue, Rinoa!" Selphie said in an exasperated tone. "You need to actually kiss!"

While he didn't notice whatever the 'blep' she was doing, her current grin was another story, even from a side profile view. She then grabbed his right hand without warning and without much to go on, he found himself looking at her hand on his. She raised it to her mouth and kissed the back of his hand with her tongue lightly grazing the skin, reminding him of all the times he witnessed Irvine's deliberate attempts to fail at wooing random girls in a bid to get Selphie's attention. As he looked into her eyes, it took him everything he had to look confused instead of in reverence at the sheer calculated nature of the move as he locked eyes with his girlfriend.

After a small wink on her part, she shifted her attention towards their paparazzo once more.

"You never specified it had to be on the mouth."

Selphie lowered the camera, revealing a visibly-sour expression on her face.

"It doesn't matter because Irvine didn't let my camera charge on the way here and the battery ran out AGAIN." she groaned. "I don't even have the proof you were such a jerk- hahah!"

"…' _Haha,_ ' what?"

The brunette jabbed a finger in their general direction. "Say what you want for the wording, my stipulation was that you had to be recorded. My camera cut out before you even reached for Squall's hand! You'll have to find another case quest unless if you can get someone to record you smooching with tongue and have it shown to me. And let's face it, doing that's more trouble than its worth."

In that moment when Squall could have sworn he watched Rinoa visibly deflate at this turn of events, he knew he had to step up to the plate and be the one to take one for the team.

For Quistis.

For the last few shreds of Zell's dignity.

And most of all, for the revenge of Rinoa's brilliant plan, dashed by bad luck.

"…If we were to cut the bullshit and give you what you obviously wanted to see," he began, "would you overlook the fact that it's not recorded?"

The proposal reset Selphie's expression back to its default glee setting.

"On two conditions," she prefaced with the utmost zeal, "One – to put it on record, what I want to see is a kiss on the lips between you two where at least one tongue slips inside someone's mouth that doesn't last like 2 seconds. And two – you, Mr. Squall Leonhart have to finally confirm that you two are a thing. And by thing, I mean, you have to tell me, right in front of my face with at least a definite yes or no if you two are dating with zero sarcasm or jokes. Mostly because while I feel like I'm super confident that you are a thing, I think it's _super_ weird that neither of you have actually said it aloud to anyone. If you are not, I want an equally non-sarcastic and joke-free detailed explanation of what you are because I need to know for science."

 _Do it for the team…do it for the team…do it…_

"We are."

"We are _what,_ Mr. Squall?" Selphie pressed as she leaned over the table with her hands clasped together, nearly knocking over her glass of blue drink in the process.

… _Do it…do it…_

"We are…dating."

The grin on Selphie's face threated to break her face so she opened up her clasped hand and slapped her open palms on her cheeks.

"Eeeee _—yes!_ " she squee'd, moving one of her hands to punch up into the air over this…victory? Squall couldn't understand what the big deal was, really. "I now pronounce you girlfriend and boyfriend. You may now kiss each other silly."

In that moment, Squall looked at Rinoa and she gave him a reassuring smile and yet another wink.

She coiled her hands around his nape and nearly brought him down at her level with one deft downward pulling motion but she did not bridge the gap fully for their lips to instantly meet. Instead, she took a small step forward into the small sliver of personal space he had while making a point to look him in the eyes as she did it. Squall swore he heard Selphie slide the full length of the table to get a closer vantage point.

Then Rinoa did it again with enough gusto to force him to instinctively back up until he collided with the back of a high top chair. Once he was pinned, she raised herself on her tip-toes and leaned in, forcing him to grab onto the edge of the chair for purchase as she zeroed in on him with a fiery kiss. He couldn't reciprocate much because of the awkward angle but it didn't matter that it was all flash and no substance – judging by the squeaks and near-inaudible gasps, Selphie was either taken in by the smoke and mirrors or she took delight in the concept of him being seduced against his will.

Fortunately, Rinoa decided that now was the time to slip him the requisite tongue and effectively cut short any rational —read: irrational— thought before he could ponder any more about which it was.

Things were already weird enough as is.


	4. iv - club

Attempting a conversation with someone who just watched you make out with someone else for all intents and purposes was awkward to say the least. Rinoa was his literal and now figurative guardian angel for taking the lead on this front.

"Are you satisfied?"

Selphie finally slunk back into the booth, retaking her old posture as if she hadn't been lying on the table two seconds prior.

"Very." she replied, trying to play it cool. "The Clover-Heart item swap is a go so you and Quistis will have to have one item from each other's case at your checkpoints."

"So you really do know who has what?" Rinoa asked, folding her hands.

"Of course. The mechanism in the case was set to take a picture the moment it opened and transmitted the snaps to my phone. You should see the shot I got of Quistis's face – it'd make for a great reaction image on the internet. Also, while we're on this topic, you might want to take a look at this."

Selphie pulled out her phone from her pocket tapped a few icons and showed them her screen.

"Are you KIDDING ME Selphie?" the sorceress shouted in exasperation, "I opened my case in the bathroom! No one was there. Squall can attest to that."

The picture was of Rinoa peering into the case with his pyjama pants and a sliver of his torso in the background right behind her; it must have went off when Rinoa was reaching in for the playing card deck to find the projection gizmo.

"I know two of the cameras didn't make a beeping noise when I tested the functionality so it looks like lady luck wasn't on your side on that one."

"No but – I opened it all the way in the bathroom. That should have triggered it if you said it triggers at the open. Glitches like that shouldn't count." she protested. Selphie shook her head.

"I should clarify what I said just a little. They usually take photos when they open because the camera is triggered by facial detection software." she explained. "If you opened it in the dark or if the camera was obscured by something, it wouldn't take a picture because it needs a clear-enough shot."

Squall placed his hands on her shoulders, trying to calm down her trembling. He didn't remember seeing a light source in the bathroom when he was opening up his case so she must have come to the same realization that it wasn't a glitch or cheap trick too.

"Since I didn't explain what Hyne-mode was in the video because of time constraints, I'm going to give you a run down now. You'll be glad it's you two together because it'll make things a teeny bit more forgiving. Just a teeny bit though." Selphie prefaced with borderline-manic glee. "In the spirit of Hyne, who tricked people into thinking they were getting something useful like magic, you two are getting one extra item each for your case requirements – Irvine should have already delivered it to room 356 by now. Doesn't matter who takes what but you have to take one each."

Guess they finally got confirmation that Irvine disappeared to be Selphie's little helper, Squall sardonically mused.

"But it doesn't end there, folks!" she announced. "To commemorate Hyne hiding his powers in women, you — Rinoa — and Quistis have to trade one of your marked items with either the Square or Seasons cases – it doesn't matter if you both trade with the same case. And last but not least, to commemorate the hunt for Hyne, both of you have to accompany everyone when they go to their checkpoints while wearing what you need for your own checkpoint."

"Selphie, as someone literally affected by Hyne's shenanigans and has done some research because of that, I'm kinda impressed you know the full history of Hyne." Rinoa said in a tone that Squall thought deftly skirted the fine line between being a genuine compliment versus a backhanded one. "And it also reminds me that I can access source magic anytime I want, unlike anyone else."

Selphie's eyes widened in recoil. "You wouldn't _dare,_ Rinoa. We're in Esthar of all places – they'll try to seal you up again."

Squall could feel Rinoa's shoulders tense up again. Hell, even he was tense. This was beyond the pale and but he chose to bite his tongue…for now.

"-Normally I'd say you're right, but this goes both ways. If you're going to humiliate us for funzies, I can do the same to you and it doesn't have to be anything flashy that would draw any attention." she warned. "You made the grave mistake of backing yourself into a corner for this side quest thing."

"Hey, hey…don't have to go that far."

"No, I think I do. There's a Pain spell with your name on it." she quietly warned. "So tell us now, why are you doing this and why won't you call it off? It's not like you to plan deliberately un-fun things."

"I can't call it off, Rin. I want to, but I can't." she frankly replied, her eyes flickering at Squall for a split second. "…T-Garden is depending on me."

Rinoa blinked. "Oh?"

"I don't know how much you know about Garden stuff but we've been hurting really bad since Cid just…dropped everything after the war once Matron was safe. Once Xu took over and we got back control of all the Gardens, she looked at the books and realized how in the red we were. Long story short, she had to make mega-cuts to try and change things around."

"So Trabia's funding got a bunch of cuts?"

"Trabia's not gonna be a Garden for much longer if this keeps up." she admitted. "Xu's told me over and over that there are too many repairs for the budget. Heck, I couldn't even get cleared to pilot the Ragnarok to help go do a few repairs to T-Garden on my own time without doing some supply farming on the side if that tells you anything. Anyway, I don't think Xu's right but I'm not running the show so I had to find a way to get her to see that."

"…And that way is to make us run around in ridiculous outfits?"

"Yeah. Some of the stuff is 100% T-Garden-developed tech. The stuff I said was Estharian is actually part of a T-Garden and a small Estharian tech company's collaboration project I indirectly spearheaded too." she began to explain. "I thought if you guys can vouch for the cool stuff Trabia can make with a blind test run, maybe I can find a way to convince Xu that T-Garden is worth investing in because of the awesome tech and paramagic R&D we don't have at B or G-Garden."

"I think I understand a little better now." Rinoa said, placing her hands overtop his to gently move them off her shoulders. "That being said, this was really a bad way to approach this. Like, mega-bad. All this did was make us all pretty upset at you. I mean, I'm pretty sure the others will come around like we did once you explain the situation to them too but, imagine Xu. Imagine her asking us info about how we tested these items. It's not going to look good on you or Trabia if you have to admit you tricked us into using them. If I was her, I'd probably think, _'hm, I wonder why they had to be tricked to use them.'_ "

"Rin, she's more of a _'the end justifies the means'_ kind of person. That's not going to matter to her. In fact, it might even give me brownie points."

"It's the only reason why she puts up with me, more or less." Squall chimed in before addressing Selphie. "Xu will get upset if she finds out about what Quistis had to deal with, though."

"Crap, you're right. Well, she and Rin have that Hyne-mode swap, it'll probably help her out the most – I've put in another info gizmo with your extra stuff that basically explains what I just told you."

"Cool, cool." Rinoa paused for a moment to clap her hands and walk two steps closer to reach the base of the raised booth platform. Squall couldn't see her face, but he could only imagine she was pulling out all the stops expression-wise, since she had a habit of telegraphing that she was going full-tilt into _Charming Bulldozer_ mode with a clap. "Feel like being _eeeextra_ -generous by telling us what the slip of paper in Quistis's case means? Or any other location hints for that matter?"

Ah, yes, there it was.

When Selphie dished it back with the same intensity with her former grin returning and a clap pre-facing her answer, Squall couldn't help but feel like this was the weirdest power struggle he'd ever witnessed in his life. And he'd done his share of dumb shit whenever Seifer was involved.

" _Noope!_ " she sweetly responded before she shifted her gaze past her to lock eyes with him. "Don't worry though, Squall has been to all of the places - you'll figure it out if you pick his brain a little. But on the odd chance that you don't, me or Irvine will deliver extra hints to room 404 for that case every time you miss its checkpoint."

"Fair enough." Rinoa folded her hands once more. "One last question. Say if we get a few of the checkpoints and miss some, Like say we get Luck's at 1 pm, miss Square's, get Seasons' and miss Four's. When it's 9 pm, does it become Square's time slot and 11 pm becomes Four's or do their timeslots remain the same as if we'd missed all of them?"

"Ah, so you figured the order out. Nice." The brunette thoughtfully paused with her thumb at the side of her mouth to mull the question over. "…In the interest of Xu not shanking me for automatically forcing Quistis to go out at 3 am if you miss her checkpoint, I will reconsider the original plan. So starting at 9 pm, the next check point will rotate to the first missed case and so on. As a trade-off, the checkpoints are only manned the first hour of each two hour period. You only get extra hints once. Fair?"

"As fair as this ridiculous situation is, sure." And with that, the sorceress turned her back from Selphie to face him. "Let's go. Our breakfast is probably getting cold."

He nodded back and they wordlessly left.

Once they were out of earshot and waiting for the elevators, Rinoa quietly asked him, "Is it true? Is T-Garden really in that much trouble for her to pull this kind of stunt?"

"…Yes and no." he eventually replied as they entered into an open elevator and pushed the button for 3rd floor. "I don't know a lot of the particulars since I see more of the logistical side of paperwork than financial reports but I'd be lying if I said I didn't notice the trend of T-Garden getting the least amount of funding of the three. That being said, if we were preparing to cut our losses and close down Trabia, I would have been informed since it affects ops for obvious reasons. There's no way Selphie would have been told that and not me or Quistis."

"So basically what you're saying is that she is reading too much into Xu's comments of _'we can't fix it all right now because money'_ kind of like how she takes personal offense whenever the Garden Festival Committee budget is cut or kept equal from the previous year's budget?"

"Pretty much."

"…So should we keep Zell and Quistis in the dark about the reason why we're doing ridiculous things against our will?"

"There's no point in explaining. At best it won't change anything. At worst, it'll make them angrier at being used as peons for a game that didn't need to be played." he frankly answered, absentmindedly eying the LED display. "…The truth can wait. We need to get through this first."

"True."

As the LED displayed the number three and a ding pre-empted the door opening, Squall offered his hand to her – an offer she readily accepted it in a heartbeat just as he had earlier.

"Your hand is just as clammy as mine." she remarked. "Guess that means we need to hold on tighter so our hands don't slip, huh?"

"Guess it does."

As they walked down the third floor corridor hand-in-hand in another stolen moment, the ache in Squall's heart grew with each step.

He'd make it up to her as soon as he could, he vowed.

—

By the time they made their way back to room 404, they were welcomed with the smell of freshly-brewed coffee and the sight of Zell and Quistis making room to place the various covered platters on the limited desk space.

"Good timing. The food just got here." Zell told them as he set down the carafe of coffee and took his glass of orange juice. "How did it go?"

"It…was a mixed bag but we'll live." Rinoa replied, holding up the small yellow gift bags. Knowing they didn't contain anything fragile, she lobbed them onto the bed. "We got the Clover-Heart swap approved but turns out we…kinda-sorta accidentally instigated Hyne mode too?"

The martial artist nearly snorted juice out of his nose and Quistis sharply turned her head in their direction.

"—Say _what?_ "

"It's mostly affecting us." Squall reassured as he walked towards the strip of space between both beds, fished the gizmo out of his pocket and aimed it at the turned-off television.

" _If you're watching this, you know what that means? Yes, boys and girls, you've activated HYNE MODE – YAAAAY!_ " pre-recorded Selphie announced, hamming it up extra hard as if she was in a children's television show. _"Looks like the people with the…_ **Luck** … **Seasons** … _…cases are in for some extra fun. In the spirit of the Hyne witch hunt, you now have to be present at every checkpoint while wearing what you need for your own. To represent the useless half of his body Hyne gave to the humans, you each have to wear one useless item each from these yellow gift bags on top of your existing requirements. And last but not least, to honor the useful half of his body that he hid in women, Rinoa and Quistis, you now have to trade one of your case's marked items for a marked item originally found in the…_ **Square** … **Seasons** … _…cases. Doesn't matter if you pick from the same case so long as you trade. That's it, that's all! See you later – byeeee!"_

Once the screen returned to black, Quistis sat down on the corner of the window-side bed.

"I don't know what's more shocking, the fact this makes my situation easier with two items to trade away or that Selphie actually knows the legend of Hyne." she murmured in disbelief, earning a few under-her-breath chuckles from Rinoa.

"I literally said the same thing." the sorceress commented. "Great minds think alike, huh?"

"Yes, but fools seldom differ." she light-heartedly added.

"Touché. I guess we should hash out who will get what from the boys so we do differ just a bit." Squall was then met with a knowing look, Rinoa's eyes filled to the brim with cogs turning already. "Question. Since I see a bandeau bikini top in your pile of things, do you think you can even fit into the bottoms? I'm not sure Selphie realizes that men's trunks and women's boyshorts aren't exactly interchangeable."

Squall picked them up again and inspected them more closely than he had the first time now that he was past the initial visceral reaction of disgust towards the ugly pink hue. Maybe a little more thoroughly than needed because his brain needed the time to find a tactful way to explain and words were failing him, even more so than usual.

"The waistband seems comparable to my pants but…the height from the junction of the legs to the waist looks shorter, if that makes sense. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't be opposed to trading for your dress pants."

"I figured. Selphie didn't put in a belt in my case so I might be a tripping hazard. I'd definitely be willing to trade you. Quistis could probably make use of the top."

"Here's a wild idea," Zell interjected, "How about we all put on our case clothes after breakfast. And figure out who needs what once we actually see the damage."

"Sounds like a thinly-veiled attempt to embarrass ourselves for no reason."

"Hey man, if no one in their right mind gonna trade me for the morph birthday suit, what's like a solid minute of shame for the rest of you?"

"Normally I wouldn't indulge this but, I think we should listen to Zell." Quistis added. "If only to see for ourselves how bad it is so we'll have the satisfaction of knowing that Selphie will never see it herself."

"This is very true." Rinoa agreed, looking back at him. "If you can join us for the jokes, that'd be great. But only if you can get the shorts past your hips. I've been there too many times to force you to give us an unintentional peep show."

Both Zell and Squall raised brows at that statement.

"—I meant that I've tried on shorts that didn't go high enough too many times, you pervs. The ultra-low waist trend a few years ago took no pear-shaped prisoners, ok?" Rinoa chastised. Their brows remained unaffected, but the sorceress remained unconvinced that it wasn't merely for show. "You guys are horrible. I'm going to enjoy my plate of very expensive Deling toast."

"Rinoa has a point." Squall conceded. "We should all start to enjoy our plates of very expensive food before it gets cold."

Without much fanfare, they all meandered towards their food and dug in.

To Zell's credit, he was the first one finished, despite having a non-omelette order and the extra full order of Deling toast to boot. In the defense of everyone else, they were all collectively distracted at the rate Zell was stuffing his face because of the very-real possibility he was going to repeat the bread roll incident from two years ago.

Nevertheless, once the food was mostly eaten and the covered dishes were sent to the hallway for collection, they wasted no time to return to the task at hand.

"I'll go first." Rinoa suggested as she gathered up her case and headed to the bathroom.

Once the door locked, Squall set aside the items he needed into a neat stack and stuffed the rest back into his case to clear the space. With nothing better to do in the interim, he grabbed the inner tube, uncapped the air valve and started inflating it. As it took shape, it also took Zell's attention.

"Dude, I didn't realize it was a _PuPu_ pool donut. That is cool – can I—"

Squall pinched the valve and turned his head just enough to mutter, "—No you cannot."

"—You didn't even let me finish. I just want to see the front once you're done blowing it. I'm just curious to see if it's from the official PuPu Explorer store or just a knock-off. The only way you can tell is if the antenna curves to the right."

A breath's worth of hot recycled air found its way back into Squall's mouth and made him sputter a little bit. Thankfully Zell's attention was drawn towards the corridor behind him as the bathroom door creaked open. Curious as well, Squall closed the valve and set down the donut.

Rinoa soon emerged into his line of vision, her thumbs hooked into two of her belt loops and the cape billowing slightly. While the three piece suit didn't look like it was wearing her per se, it was evident that it wasn't tailored for someone of her build; the seams of the suit jacket's shoulders slumped an inch down her deltoids and the hem of the sleeves ended at the base of her thumb even when buttoned-up.

The buttoned-up jacket looked like it was two sizes too big at the waist and was even looser around her mid-upper body; he could barely see the underlying vest and only the tips of the burgundy dress shirt's collar poked out from underneath the black bow tie. The pants looked like they fit decently enough from what he could see at a glance though some excess material pooled at her feet as whatever fold she made was loosening. The top hat with the ace of clubs card sticking out from the matching burgundy band completely suited her, however.

"I'm definitely going to have to trade you, Squall." she more-or-less announced to him. "The inseam is about a good inch too long which would normally not be the end of the world but the waist is super big and I nearly pantsed myself walking out here. I'd really like to not walk with my thumbs in my belt loops like this. At least the burgundy and pink won't clash too much."

"You could probably get away with just the vest, you know Rin." Zell interjected, looking like he ready for his turn in the bathroom with his pile of items in hand.

"Oh trust me, I'm not wearing the shirt. I was talking about the hat." she explained, tipping the aforementioned hat with her thumb and forefinger. "I figured if I'm trading Quistis for the cape, I could pull off the vest over fishnets look with the shorts. People will probably mistake me for an 18-plus show's stage performer but when life hands you cases, well…you get the idea."

"Yep. Speaking of that, I should probably get changed. Won't be too long."

And with that, Zell walked past Rinoa and the resounding click of the door's locking mechanism followed shortly after. As Quistis sat herself on the window-side bed with a neatly-stacked pile of her items, the tentacle notwithstanding, the sorceress followed suit and claimed a free patch of mattress real estate on the other side of the bed. As she took off the top hat and began fumbling with the cape's strings, her eyes drifted towards his pool tube PuPu and her fingers went idle.

"That is adorable. I didn't know they made these." she commented. "Between that and the vintage 'Talk to the Paw' Moomba shirt, I wish Selphie used her powers for good. These are great finds."

"Is the shirt one of your items in that bag?" Quistis asked. Rinoa nodded.

"It is. But saying it's a shirt is a little generous for what was in there. It's like someone tried to cut off the sleeves to make a tank top but ended up cutting an entirely different portion of the shirt by mistake and tried to correct it by making very long arm holes."

"I guess that makes sense since Selphie did say you were getting useless items." she remarked. "What was in the other bag?"

"A big heart-shaped pinback button that says, _'Your waifu is trash. Fight me.'_ I don't know what any of that means other than fight me, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the one wearing this."

"' _Waifu'_ is just slang for wife. Usually in that context, wife is a favourite fictional female character someone has or a woman they admire if they're a real person." Quistis filled her in with a matter-of-fact tone. "That pin more or less translates to, _'You have terrible taste in women. Fight me.'_ "

Both Squall and Rinoa stared at the former instructor for a good long second before the latter broke the silence.

"I'd ask how you know that but something tells me it has to do with dealing with Trepies."

"You'd be correct, unfortunately." Quistis sighed. "Many things I've learned by proxy make Zell's pixelated nude suit look tame in comparison. Having a fan club is hell, sometimes."

" _What was that you said about my nude suit? I can't hear too great in this."_

All three of them turned around to see Zell in the nude morph suit with the necklace around his neck.

"Zell, we were wondering if can you put one hand on your hip and the other arm raised with your palm flat towards the ceiling. That's all." Rinoa asked in a louder voice, lying through her teeth for some reason.

"… _Ok?_ "

When Zell did as he was asked, it dawned on Squall why she made the request – he looked like a display mannequin when he posed in this fashion. The minor alteration in body language instantly shifted his appearance from vaguely obscene to concretely ridiculous.

" _Rin, can I stop doing this now? It's been like a minute."_

"Yup - I saw what I needed to see."

" _Cool."_

Two seconds later, Zell was reaching for the back of his skull to unzip the suit enough to pull down the face portion. Upon freedom, his hair rivaled that of a Chicobo tossed in a dryer.

"Your turn, Squall." he said with a wide grin.

"…Don't remind me." he sardonically replied as he lackadaisically grabbed his clothes and the PuPu pool donut before making a beeline to the bathroom.

Once he was inside and the door was locked, Squall set his case item clothes on the closed toilet lid and chucked the PuPu into the empty shower tub. Without much thought, he systematically stripped down and then reached for the pink swimsuit bottoms to put them on.

In some mystery only known to Hyne, the shorts fit pretty well – looking more or less like the swimwear equivalent to boxer-briefs. The waistband sat at a respectable inch below his navel and he wasn't at risk of spilling out of the shorts or leaving less than nothing to the imagination. The colour was still abhorrent and a crime against humanity but he reckoned that the UFO memorabilia everyone seemed to love would serve as a lightning rod to attract attention away from his junk.

… _Not that he needed to wear these outside this hotel room,_ he reminded himself.

Trying not to dwell on that, he slipped the inner tube over his head and shoved it far enough down to obscure as much as possible without constricting his movement. Once he shoved the knit Moogle hat over his head, Squall finally took stock of what he saw in the mirror.

All things considering, he didn't really look far removed what he'd seen at one of Balamb's many beaches during the summer. The complex did have a pool area on the ground floor so people would surely pay him no mind if he waited outside the bench at Yuna's Bistro and assumed he'd come from the pool, would they not?

Squall reminded himself once more that he wouldn't be wearing this outside this hotel room.

After he grabbed his sleepwear from the floor, he exited the bathroom.

But instead of rounding the corner and rejoining the others, his attention was caught by a slip of paper that hadn't fully cleared the threshold of the closed door — it had his name on it in bold black marker. It was also in Selphie's all-caps writing so naturally, he bent over to pick it up and flipped it over.

 _I'm sorry to do this since it's not in the contextual spirit of 'just do whatever, Selphie,' but I have to pull the plug on this scavenger hunt. Will explain to you later. Will also barge into the room at 10:00 am to burst everyone's bubble. Make sure no one is naked. Or make sure everyone is, I won't judge. Tell no one if you can._

 _-Selph._


	5. v - joker

Squall hid the paper between his bundle of clothes and began to approach the group. Instinctively, he knew there had to be at least ten more minutes before Selphie would barge in and so he faced a decision – did he try to stall so Quistis wouldn't be caught in her case attire or did he let things progress as normal in the hopes she'd change back by then?

As he inched closer, another thought took up space. Why did she cancel? What was bad enough to warrant that? Did his work phone go off for an 'emergency' Selphie wouldn't feasibly be able to discern was urgent versus one of the many paper-thin excuses and cutesy turn of phrases?

No, she'd find a way to accost him privately if she was unsure what constituted as urgent. There was still time before the game began in earnest and Irvine was here — he could have helped out in the interim if it held them up. Bent the rules if she had to. Selphie was always the last to abandon a sinking ship when it came to events planning. Maybe there was something on her end that-

" _ **Holy. Shit. Squall."**_

Zell's loud voice instantly uncoupled Squall from his runaway train of thought. All three of them were staring at him with intense enraptured expressions as if he was in the middle of growing a second head.

"…Were you expecting something other than completely godawful?" he sardonically retorted.

"Well duh, we were. We're dealing with an unchecked Selphie here." the martial artist flippantly answered. "It's just that…how do I put it, if we didn't know you were, well _you,_ this would work in an ironic hipster kind of way? I mean, you're pale as a ghost and have that disinterested youth vibe. It just…works."

Quistis got up from her seated position with her heart-shaped glasses in hand and silently put them on his face, a small smile blossoming on her lips as she walked back.

"There. Now you're even more hipster. Say something jaded."

While it would have been easy to give them what they asked for in a bid to run out the clock, lightning bolt of an idea struck him. It probably wouldn't afford him as much time but the allure was too great not to pass up the chance.

"I like dogs."

The complete lack of sarcasm in his voice earned him a few blinks. Good.

"Hot dogs are sausage sandwiches."

Predictably, Zell's eye started twitching.

"Sometimes I eat tubs of glitter glue when I want my insides to look prettier. Glitter is my favorite colour."

When even Rinoa, one of the few people who could confirm he had a sense of humour, tilted her head in disbelief, he knew his evil plan was having an effect. Now it was time for the kill before his own brain cells died off en masse from saying these things, even ironically.

"Live, laugh, love!"

"Oh my god, Squall. Stop it right now. We asked for something jaded, not something to induce multiple existential crises." Rinoa pleaded, going so far as to walk over and cup his mouth with her hand. Leaning over, she heatedly whispered into his ear, " _…Don't force me to make out with you in front of them to keep your mouth occupied._ "

After she let the comment steep in his mind for a bit, she removed her hand and shot him a typical _'are you going to behave now?'_ look. He gave her a level look in return.

"We are going to have to go out of this room in these outfits that will garner massive amounts of negative attention from people who will not understand that we are prisoners." he told her in the coldest tone he could muster without veering into full-on evisceration. "And _all_ puppies get old and die."

The sorceress jabbed her finger squarely into his chest, looking at him angrily for a flash of a second before she pulled in the reins.

"-Well played." she reluctantly conceded. "You got me there for a moment."

The distant drone of the key card mechanism got him before he could make a flippant comment in return. All of them understood his lack of response a few seconds later when the door handle let out a loud click and the door itself made a loud whine.

"… _Heeeeeeey!"_

The sorceress was the first to pivot on the spot towards the source of the noise. Zell bolted up at the sound and Quistis tensed up.

"Selphie why the heck are you—no, _what_ the heck are you wearing?"

Squall turned around to see Selphie in a yellow and blue jester hat, complete with a body suit in a diamond pattern of the same colour with tall tan boots; the colour scheme was oddly reminiscent of her outfit from the war. Her hands were behind her back as she waltzed forward, smiling as if she'd done nothing wrong.

"Good news for you, bad news for me, I made a teeny bit of a big miscalculation." she announced. "I thought the convention gave the option to buy day passes for any day, not just starting tomorrow. Turns out that the only way you can access the complex today is if you bought the premium four-day pass. It's a bummer, really."

Zell did a bunch of half-finished hand gestures before settling on just pointing in her general direction.

"First off, convention!? Second off, what do you mean, _'it's a bummer?'_ – the real bummer is that you decided to take our stuff and forced us to do this. Give us back our stuff! I didn't lie to the border guard and basically broke the law just to have you steal my snacks."

"Chiiill, Zell. What do you think I have behind my back?"

"… _His dignity?_ " Squall muttered in spite of himself, earning a playful swat on the arm, courtesy of his girlfriend. Thankfully, Zell did not hear or see this exchange at all.

"Dunno, a key card?"

"You're…half-right. What I have are _key-keys_!" Selphie practically screeched the last word as she dangled a Malboro keychain full of keys over her head, reprising her role as a wannabe game show announcer. "In room 716, you'll find a small brief case with four key holes on the top of it hidden somewhere. When you figure out where it is and the order of the locks, that case contains your original key chains plus one extra key for the hard-shell suitcase I used to stuff anything that wasn't clothes in it. The suitcases are all in the closet under a blanket."

After the explanation, she lobbed the keychain at Zell's head which he caught with ease and at the point of impact with his open palm, she revealed what was in her other hand – a small remote — and clicked something to make Zell's morph suit change to the same shade of pink as Squall's shorts. The martial artist nearly dropped the keys when he looked down. In rapid succession, Selphie pointed and clicked different buttons to turn the swim shorts into a gradient of white to violet, Rinoa's shirt to a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, the tentacle to light blue and one last click for a strong cotton candy smell to emanate through the air instead of the faint teenage funk.

"Pretty nifty, huh?"

"Pretty nifty but not nifty enough to make us overlook the fact you didn't answer Zell's question about the convention." Quistis pointedly added. "Why force our hands like this to attend it without telling us why? We would have checked it out with you had you asked."

"Ah, well, that's a long story. I can explain along the way back to 716 if you want. There's a really good reason, I swear."

"I somehow doubt that, but I'll take any explanation for this morning at this point." Quistis said, rubbing her eyes blearily. "Does everyone want to get changed so we can go now?"

"Yeah, I'll just throw my clothes back on in a sec." Zell chimed in, before turning towards the couple. "Squall, Rin? You coming with?"

"I will. I have to use the washroom too so I'll probably catch up with you guys later since I still have the 716 card key in my pyjama shorts' pocket." Rinoa answered.

"I'll be later as well."

"Cool, cool."

And with that, Zell scooped his clothes from the desk and retreated into the bathroom. Rinoa busied herself with gathering her clothes and with not much to do since his bundle of clothes was still in his hands, he cast Selphie a look.

"Did my phone go off at any point?"

"Nope. It was as quiet as if I cast a Silence spell on it. Or so I imagine since it was in the hard shell suitcase and none of you heard it."

"…Right."

Zell re-emerged soon after and the three of them left, leaving him with just Rinoa in the room. While she had her clothes bundled in her hands, she chose to sit on the desk chair instead of going to change.

"I find it weird that Zell nor Selphie made some kind of innuendo when you made no attempt to explain why you were staying back. It would have been more par for the course if one of them had." she commented as he shed the inner tube. "Then again, Selphie doesn't seem like herself so maybe not."

He raised a brow. "What makes you say that?"

"Everything about this." she said, gesticulating with a free hand. "We usually don't say no to attending these kinds of things she likes. At least Zell and I don't, at any rate. And it's not like her to overlook such a huge detail like a convention start date. That would have been easy to find on the event's webpage. It makes it even weirder that she went to town on a scheme like this and forgot the most basic of basics."

"It's because she had no time."

Rinoa repeated his own words back at him. "…What makes you say that?"

"Because what she said about Trabia was a well-crafted cover story with some basis in truth." he admitted, tossing the hat and glasses on the bed. "She orchestrated this in four days because I…was hired to do a brain-dead job being paid far too much money as an excuse to keep me around. And…it bothered me. Bothered me enough for Selphie to notice when she came back from Trabia a few days ago and asked if she could do something. I told her, _'just do whatever, Selphie'_ at 4 am. Nothing good ever happens at 4 am."

The sorceress said nothing, looking at him with newfound concern. He pushed himself to continue — it was now or never.

"I knew there was something off about the contract because it said it had to be me, no substitutions. Xu asked for a ridiculous sum of money during negotiations because it wasn't beneficial to Garden to have me sidelined like this without the income to back it up. It was accepted, no questions asked. They sent Selphie with me as a secondary to ascertain that there was no dangerous ulterior motive for the exclusivity because it didn't have anything to do with my particular skill set." he explained. "Once she assessed there was no risk, she was sent on an alternate task to farm for supplies in Trabia and help with some minor reconstruction at T-Garden."

"So…what was the reason for your client paying the primo price to keep you close?"

"The reason is that the client needed me around because he'd finally built up the nerve to make good on his promise to _'talk when it was all done'_ two years after the fact. The talk was to tell me I'm his son."

There was no shock present in Rinoa's face at his words, but there was empathy.

"It's ok to feel like you do about that." she offered before her expression dissolved into light confusion. "…you look surprised that I gave you that kind of answer."

"…I don't know what I was expecting. Everything about this is confusing." he confessed. "Every day is another hare-brained excuse and another attempt to gain my favour. He's even gone as far as offer to dig up information on Selphie, Quistis, Zell and Irvine's backgrounds using his connections if I wanted to help them out. I…don't know what to do."

"All I can say is that I'd be a ginormously-gigantic hypocrite if I were to say something like, _'he's obviously trying to connect with you after all this lost time - give him a chance'_ or anything like that." she told him before getting up from her seat to look him squarely in the eyes. "Just because someone is a blood relative or a quote-unquote _'nice guy,'_ doesn't mean you owe them your time – you alone get to decide that whenever you feel like you're ready to decide that. You. No one else. Not even me. Not even if you deciding cures world hunger or stops Lunar Cry."

It took him a few seconds to process the words but once they did, the burden he'd been carrying for the past few weeks lightened considerably. While he still had much to work out, it was nice to know someone understood his complicated plight.

"I…needed to hear that. Thank you."

"Any time Squall." she told him, sealing the deal with a small kiss on the cheek. "I'll be here by your side as you figure this all out – don't be afraid to reach out if you need to vent. Just…try to avoid making any decisions at 4 am ever again, ok? Galbadians call it the godless hour for a reason, you know."

In spite of himself, his curiosity was piqued.

"Why do they call it the godless hour?"

"Because no one ever has a good reason to be up at that hour. If you're out that late, something probably went wrong at some point or you're looking for trouble. If you're up that early, it's because you were forced to against better judgement or something unusual happened. It's the prime hour for weird and unlikely things to happen if you think about it that way. Galbadians call it the godless hour because it's like a time where there's no god to intervene."

"I've never claimed to be religious but after today's events, I think they're onto something."

Rinoa nodded in agreement.

"Amen, Squall. Amen."


End file.
